Though federal law requires hospitals to publicly display their prices, including their medical laboratory test prices, the information can be confusing, hard to find, and overwhelmingly complex Hospital chargemaster prices can vary dramatically among hospitals that share the same healthcare markets. That’s what California Healthline found in a recent survey of hospitals in Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif. The price differences were huge and could keep patients located in certain areas within...

Harvard’s study of high-cost Medicare patients offers insights into how medical laboratories can help improve early diagnosis, optimize therapies, and monitor chronic disease Clinical laboratories and anatomic pathology groups supporting Medicare patients understand that a small portion of high-cost patients make up the majority of Medicare spending. Between extended treatment, comorbidities, and the complex nature of disease therapies, chronic illnesses have a major impact on healthcare...

Sonic’s data-driven approach to population health management, based on helping clinicians intervene with patients to control healthcare costs, increases the lab’s revenue Sonic Healthcare USA is using clinical laboratory test data to help its client providers improve population health. This effort also has allowed the Austin, Texas-based lab company to share in the savings one provider client received from the Medicare Shared Savings Program. Using integrated financial and clinical analytics,...

As drug recalls increased over the past 12 months, questions regarding FDA oversight of drug manufacturing are triggering questions involving IVD oversight by the federal agency and potential implications for clinical laboratories Pathologists and clinical laboratory managers are following the recent recalls of popular blood pressure medications in the past six months. These issues once again placed the spotlight on failures in the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA’s) drug safety...

Vague language and last-minute additions to the federal SUPPORT Act of 2018 with its included EKRA provisions mean big changes to how clinical laboratories can legally compensate sales professionals for referrals Clinical laboratories may be at grave financial risk should they fail to properly comply with the Eliminating Kickbacks in Recovery Act of 2018 (EKRA) provision of the Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment for Patients and Communities Act (H.R....

Recently enacted EKRA law prohibits payment activities that were legal under the previous Anti-Kickback Statute, confusing clinical laboratories and legal experts alike There is a relatively new law on the books that impacts clinical laboratories, and lab leaders tasked with ensuring compliance with federal statutes need to fully understand it because getting it wrong could have dire consequences. The Substance Use-Disorder Prevention that Promotes Opioid Recovery and Treatment (SUPPORT) for...